This is a bit of a rambling post. I'm just writing from the heart. No rewrites today.

I am incredibly thankful for the sacrifices those in our armed forces have made to defend our country. There are no words sufficient to repay putting one's blood on the line.

There are those who say that if you oppose the War on Iraq, you're not supporting our troops. They are afraid that unless we all sing along with jingoistic warmongering, somehow our armed forces are weakened. They want to silence Americans and stop dissent. Such is their fear that they turn against the very freedom that America not only represents but presents to the world by example.

What these would-be thought police don't realize is that our freedom to dissent -- in fact, our disagreements themselves -- make us stronger. That freedom is the very essence of what was called "the American experiment" that captured the imaginations of peoples the world over some 200 years ago.

Our soldiers have had to go to war to defend that freedom. Fascism nearly succeeded in World War 2. The grit of, and sacrifices made by, our military men (and back then they were mostly men, save for the support services) helped turn the tide in that war and defeated the greatest threat to freedom we've faced.

During the Cold War, the cooler heads in our military managed to help prevent war against the Soviet Union. Yes, there were skirmishes all over the world, leading to much loss and tragedy. But ultimately it was the peace that won out. We had but to wait, and the Soviet Union crumbled from within. Back then it was appreciated that our armed forces' greatest role was to prevent war.

War is never pretty. Yet many in this country seem to have delusions that war can be conducted surgically, that armies really are just well-armed police forces. That our War on Iraq was planned and launched by a bunch of chicken hawks who all managed to avoid any military service when their time came reveals, perhaps, just how our country managed to get into this mess. In their arrogance, they thought they knew war. They thought they could teach the Army what war was. They ignored the advice of generals. They fired those who disagreed. And they launched recklessly into a situation that they neither comprehended nor knew how to manage.

Damn, when Tom Hayden's good, he's real good. The following is an open letter, dated April 29, from Hayden to Howard Dean, DNC Chair and man with a golden opportunity to commence the party's much needed resuscitation process.

If Dean tries to pull a Kerry-lite, non-position on the war ("the president fucked-up, so now we have to stay and support him in fucking it up even more, otherwise somebody might accuse us of being "Gasp . . .unpatriotic."

Preposterous. Look, we either need to grow up and get some moral backbone into out platform or we can turn the reins of the Democratic leadership over to Zell Miller and go smoke crack.

Hayden, primary author of the 1962 Port Huron Statement which founded Students for a Democratic Society is always at his best when leading from the front and left. The letter below makes the case for a cessation of the war and timed withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq. I thought it was a bright spot on what has lately been a rather dark political horizon.

April 26, 2005

Dear Chairman Dean,

Thank you kindly for your call and your expressed willingness to discuss the Democratic Party's position on the Iraq War. There is growing frustration at the grass roots towards the party leadership's silent collaboration with the Bush Administration's policies. Personally, I cannot remember a time in thirty years when I have been more despairing over the party's moral default. Let me take this opportunity to explain.

The party's alliance with the progressive left, so carefully repaired after the catastrophic split of 2000, is again beginning to unravel over Iraq. Thousands of anti-war activists and millions of antiwar voters gave their time, their loyalty and their dollars to the 2004 presidential campaign despite profound misgivings about our candidate's position on the Iraq War. Of the millions spent by "527" committees on voter awareness, none was spent on criticizing the Bush policies in Iraq.

The Democratic candidate, and other party leaders, even endorsed the US invasion of Falluja, giving President Bush a green-light to destroy that city with immunity from domestic criticism. As a result, a majority of Falluja's residents were displaced violently, guaranteeing a Sunni abstention from the subsequent Iraqi elections.

Then in January, a brave minority of Democrats, led by Senator Ted Kennedy and Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, advocated a timetable for withdrawal. Their concerns were quickly deflated by the party leadership.

Next came the Iraqi elections, in which a majority of Iraqis supported a platform calling for a timetable for US withdrawal. ("US Intelligence Says Iraqis Will Press for Withdrawal." New York Times, Jan. 18, 2005) A January 2005 poll showed that 82 percent of Sunnis and 69 percent of Shiites favored a "near-term US withdrawal" (New York Times, Feb. 21, 2005. The Democrats failed to capitalize on this peace sentiment, as if it were a threat rather than an opportunity.

Three weeks ago, tens of thousands of Shiites demonstrated in Baghdad calling again for US withdrawal, chanting "No America, No Saddam." (New York Times, April 10, 2005) The Democrats ignored this massive nonviolent protest.

There is evidence that the Bush Administration, along with its clients in Baghdad, is ignoring or suppressing forces within the Iraqi coalition calling for peace talks with the resistance. The Democrats are silent towards this meddling.

On April 12, Donald Rumsfeld declared "we don't really have an exit strategy. We have a victory strategy." (New York Times, April 13, 2005). There was no Democratic response.

The new Iraqi regime, lacking any inclusion of Sunnis or critics of our occupation, is being pressured to invite the US troops to stay. The new government has been floundering for three months, hopelessly unable to provide security or services to the Iraqi people. Its security forces are under constant siege by the resistance. The Democrats do nothing.

A unanimous Senate, including all Democrats, supports another $80-plus billion for this interminable conflict. This is a retreat even from the 2004 presidential campaign when candidate John Kerry at least voted against the supplemental funding to attract Democratic voters.

The Democratic Party's present collaboration with the Bush Iraq policies is not only immoral but threatens to tear apart the alliance built with antiwar Democrats, Greens, and independents in 2004. The vast majority of these voters returned to the Democratic Party after their disastrous decision to vote for Ralph Nader four years before. But the Democrats' pro-war policies threaten to deeply splinter the party once again.

We all supported and celebrated your election as Party chairman, hoping that winds of change would blow away what former president Bill Clinton once called "brain-dead thinking."

But it seems to me that your recent comments about Iraq require further reflection and reconsideration if we are to keep the loyalty of progressives and promote a meaningful alternative that resonates with mainstream American voters.

Let me tell you where I stand personally. I do not believe the Iraq War is worth another drop of blood, another dollar of taxpayer subsidy, another stain on our honor. Our occupation is the chief cause of the nationalist resistance in that country. We should end the war and foreign economic occupation. Period.

To those Democrats in search of a muscular, manly foreign policy, let me say that real men (and real patriots) do not sacrifice young lives for their own mistakes, throw good money after bad, or protect the political reputations of high officials at the expense of their nation's moral reputation.

At the same time, I understand that there are limitations on what a divided political party can propose, and that there are internal pressures from hawkish Democratic interest groups. I am not suggesting that the Democratic Party has to support language favoring "out now" or "isolation." What I am arguing is that the Democratic Party must end its silent consent to the Bush Administration's Iraq War policies and stand for a negotiated end to the occupation and our military presence. The Party should seize on Secretary Rumsfeld's recent comments to argue that the Republicans have never had an "exit strategy" because they have always wanted a permanent military outpost in the Middle East, whatever the cost.

The Bush Administration deliberately conceals the numbers of American dead in the Iraq War. Rather than the 1,500 publicly acknowledged, the real number is closer to 2,000 when private contractors are counted.

The Iraq War costs one billion dollars in taxpayer funds every week. In "red" states like Missouri, the taxpayer subsidy for the Iraq War could support nearly 200,000 four-year university scholarships.

Military morale is declining swiftly. Prevented by antiwar opinion from re-instituting the military draft, the Bush Administration is forced to intensify the pressures on our existing forces. Already forty percent of those troops are drawn from the National Guard or reservists. Recruitment has fallen below its quotas, and 37 military recruiters are among the 6,000 soldiers who are AWOL.

President Bush's "coalition of the willing" is steadily weakening, down from 34 countries to approximately twenty. Our international reputation has become that of a torturer, a bully.

The anti-war movement must lead and hopefully, the Democratic Party will follow. But there is much the Democratic Party can do:

First, stop marginalizing those Democrats who are calling for immediate withdrawal or a one-year timetable. Encourage pubic hearings in Congressional districts on the ongoing costs of war and occupation, with comparisons to alternative spending priorities for the one billion dollars per week.

Second, call for peace talks between Iraqi political parties and the Iraqi resistance. Hold hearings demand to know why the Bush Administration is trying to squash any such Iraqi peace initiatives. (Bush Administration officials are hoping the new Iraqi government will "settle for a schedule based on the military situation, not the calendar." New York Times, Jan. 19, 2005).

Third, as an incentive to those Iraqi peace initiatives, the US needs to offer to end the occupation and withdraw our troops by a near-term date. The Bush policy, supported by the Democrats, is to train and arm Iraqis to fight Iraqis--a civil war with fewer American casualties.

Fourth, to further promote peace initiatives, the US needs to specify that a multi-billion dollar peace dividend will be earmarked for Iraqi-led reconstruction, not for the Halliburtons and Bechtels, without discrimination as to Iraqi political allegiances.

Fifth, Democrats could unite behind Senator Rockefellers's persistent calls for public hearings on responsibility for the torture scandals. If Republicans refuse to permit such hearings, Democrats should hold them independently. "No taxes for torture" is a demand most Democrats should be able to support. The Democratic Senate unity against the Bolton appointment is a bright but isolated example of how public hearings can keep media and public attention focused on the fabricated reasons for going to war.

Instead of such initiatives, the national Democratic Party is either committed to the Iraq War, or to avoiding blame for losing the Iraq War, at the expense of the social programs for which it historically stands. The Democrats' stance on the war cannot be separated from the Democrats' stance on health care, social security, inner city investment, and education, all programs gradually being defunded by a war which costs $100 billion yearly, billed to future generations.

This is a familiar pattern for those of us who suffered through the Vietnam War. Today it is conventional wisdom among Washington insiders, including even the liberal media, that the Democratic Party must distance itself from its antiwar past, and must embrace a position of military toughness.

The truth is quite the opposite. What the Democratic Party should distance itself from is its immoral and self-destructive pro-war positions in the 1960s which led to unprecedented polarization, the collapse of funds for the War on Poverty, a schism in the presidential primaries, and the destruction of the Lyndon Johnson presidency. Thirty years after our forced withdrawal from Vietnam, the US government has stable diplomatic and commercial relations with its former Communist enemy. The same future is possible in Iraq.

I appeal to you, Mr. Chairman, not to take the anti-war majority of this Party for granted. May I suggest that you initiate a serious reappraisal of how the Democratic Party has become trapped in the illusions which you yourself questioned so cogently when you ran for president. I believe that an immediate commencement of dialogue is necessary to fix the credibility gap in the Party's position on the Iraq War. Surely if the war was a mistake based on a fabrication, there is a better approach than simply becoming accessories to the perpetrators of the deceit. And surely there is a greater role for Party leadership than permanently squandering the immense good will, grass roots funding, and new volunteer energy that was generated by your visionary campaign.

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The head of Britain's foreign intelligence agency told the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that the case for war in Iraq was being "fixed" by Washington to suit United States policy, according to a new BBC documentary.

Nine months before hostilities began in March 2003, Richard Dearlove, head of MI6, briefed Mr Blair and a group of ministers on the US's determination to begin the invasion, says the program, which was due to be aired last night.

After attending a briefing in Washington, Mr Dearlove told the meeting that "the facts and intelligence" were being "fixed round the policy" by the Bush Administration.

The allegations against Mr Blair just weeks before an expected general election are likely to reopen a feud between the Government and the BBC. The two fell out last year over allegations by a BBC reporter that Britain "sexed up" the case for war.

The documentary argues that Mr Blair had signed up to follow President George Bush's plans for "regime change" in Iraq as early as April 2002.

I ask, What about our freedom? What about our democracy? What about our security?

While we're sending our bravest off to fight and die in a country that was virtually no threat to us, we are unable to face with military means or with a strong economy the much more real and tangible threats from al-Qaeda -- remember those guys? The ones who blew up the World Trade Center?

Apparently the security of the United States had to be tabled for a few years while Bush went on his Great Iraq Adventure. Why? For oil? To punish Saddam for "thumbing his nose at us"? As payback for his daddy?

In some cases, respected global organizations seem to be viewed with suspicion. In describing the vulnerabilities of the United States, the document uses strong language to list international bodies - such as the International Court of Justice, created under a treaty that the United States has declined to sign - alongside terrorists.

"Our strength as a nation-state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international [forums], judicial processes and terrorism," the document states.

Yes, alliances are now "weak." Justice is now "weak." Forget friends, forget law and order. They're all just the same as "terrorism," according to our current government.

Are these the things conservatives mean when they try to talk about "moral values"?

Or: How to learn to stop worrying about liberals and love the bomb

If, over this past year, you've been feeling rather oppressed by the pinko atheist left wing media elite, ponder this: It could have been worse! There are many stories that were successfully filtered, censored and/or withheld from the public by our protectors in the board rooms that control our media outlets. Let's look at some of the stories that received virtually no attention in 2004, while thanking the stars for sparing us.

Here are some headlines them America-hating liberals would just love to get out:

A series of reports released in 2003 by the UN and other global economy analysis groups warn that further increases in the imbalance in wealth throughout the world will have catastrophic effects if left unchecked. UN-habitat reports that unless governments work to control the current unprecedented spread in urban growth, a third of the world's population will be slum dwellers within 30 years. Currently, almost one-sixth of the world's population lives in slum-like conditions.

As if this were a problem! Don't them liberals know that people paying rent are much more obedient than people who own their own homes? Just what we need are a bunch of uppity blasphemers and heathens, thinking that they have rights in this world!

Attorney General John Ashcroft is seeking to strike down one of the worldâ€™s oldest human rights laws, the Alien Torts Claim Act (ATCA) which holds government leaders, corporations, and senior military officials liable for human rights abuses taking place in foreign countries.

For crying out loud! Don't them liberals know that personal responsibility is for the peasants, not for the players?!

Critics charge that the Bush Administration is purging, censoring, and manipulating scientific information in order to push forward its pro-business, anti-environmental agenda. In Washington, D.C. more than 60 of the nationâ€™s top scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, and former federal agency directors, issued a statement on February 18, 2004 accusing the Bush Administration of deliberately distorting scientific results for political ends and calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking.

Them liberals are always harping on this science stuff, as if dissecting a frog is going to help prepare the world for the Second Coming! They don't read the Bible, they don't know nothing! It's good this story was killed. No sense confusing the public with a bunch of facts!

Civilian populations in Afghanistan and Iraq and occupying troops have been contaminated with astounding levels of radioactive depleted and non-depleted uranium as a result of post-9/11 United Statesâ€™ use of tons of uranium munitions. Researchers say surrounding countries are bound to feel the effects as well.

In 2003 scientists from the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC) studied urine samples of Afghan civilians and found that 100% of the samples taken had levels of non-depleted uranium (NDU) 400% to 2000% higher than normal levels. The UMRC research team studied six sites, two in Kabul and others in the Jalalabad area. The civilians were tested four months after the attacks in Afghanistan by the United States and its allies.

NDU is more radioactive than depleted uranium (DU), which itself is charged with causing many cancers and severe birth defects in the Iraqi populationâ€“especially childrenâ€“over the past ten years. Four million pounds of radioactive uranium was dropped on Iraq in 2003 alone. Uranium dust will be in the bodies of our returning armed forces. Nine soldiers from the 442nd Military Police serving in Iraq were tested for DU contamination in December 2003. Conducted at the request of The News, as the U.S. government considers the cost of $1,000 per affected soldier prohibitive, the test found that four of the nine men were contaminated with high levels of DU, likely caused by inhaling dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops. Several of the men had traces of another uranium isotope, U-236, that are produced only in a nuclear reaction process.

Most American weapons (missiles, smart bombs, dumb bombs, bullets, tank shells, cruise missiles, etc.) contain high amounts of radioactive uranium. Depleted or non-depleted, these types of weapons, on detonation, release a radioactive dust which, when inhaled, goes into the body and stays there. It has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Basically, itâ€™s a permanently available contaminant, distributed in the environment, where dust storms or any water nearby can disperse it. Once ingested, it releases subatomic particles that slice through DNA.

UMRCâ€™s Field Team found several hundred Afghan civilians with acute symptoms of radiation poisoning along with chronic symptoms of internal uranium contamination, including congenital problems in newborns. Local civilians reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke plumes rising from the point of impact, an acrid smell, followed by burning of the nasal passages, throat and upper respiratory tract. Subjects in all locations presented identical symptom profiles and chronologies. The victims reported symptoms including pain in the cervical column, upper shoulders and basal area of the skull, lower back/kidney pain, joint and muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties, headaches, memory problems and disorientation.

This is just the kind of liberal talk that undermines our troops! These scientists should be supporting our troops instead of criticizing their health! And them Afganistanicans and Iraqians getting sick, well, sometimes there's a price for freedom! They should be thanking us!

You know, I could go on, commenting on all these news stories that the liberal elite tried to get past our corporate protectors. But it's just too darned exhausting. After a while, things just start to seep in.

So here are links to some other news stories that them liberals never managed to get out. (Losers!) When you read, be very careful. They're sneaky-like and will try to confuse you with facts. If you're not careful, if you're not ever vigilant, you may end up learning something, and then where would you be?